EVENTS

Episode CCCXVII: Frantic fill-in

I’ve only got a few minutes with wifi — having limited access to the internet is maddening for a guy with a serious web addiction — so I’m hastily putting up a new thread, since you overfilled the last TET.

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Comments

When you say forced socialisation, am I right in thinking that’s essentially ‘pick her up and don’t let her get down for a bit’?

More or less. You need to keep them in your hands for 20 minutes straight. This is much more difficult than you’d think. The idea behind it is that a rat can remain fearful for 20 minutes, then the fear breaks. In some rats, one session will do the trick, however, others need repeated attempts. It does work, though, so it’s worth the effort. See here.

via BoingBoing, a teacher reports on the horrendous bassackwardness of prep materials for Florida’s standardized science test, while the Florida DOE defends it:

I expected the Test Item Specifications to be a tremendous help in writing simulated FCAT questions. What I found was a collection of poorly written examples, multiple-choice questions where one or more of the wrong responses were actually scientifically correct answers, and definitions that ranged from misleading to totally wrong.

[example]Predator—An organism that obtains nutrients from other organisms.

By that definition, cows are predators because they obtain nutrients from plants. The plants are predators too, since they obtain nutrients from decaying remains of other organisms. I have yet to find anyone who thinks that this is a proper definition of a predator.

[…]

I asked for contact information of someone from the Content Advisory Committee, so I could find out how these errors made it past scientific review. Steve Ash, Executive Director of the Test Development Center, told me that FLDOE would not give out that information.

Even more troubling was their response to the example questions that had more than one correct answer. […]

So according to the Test Development Center, it appears that it is acceptable to use scientifically correct answers for wrong responses on the Science FCAT as long as FLDOE does not expect a fifth grader to be educated enough to realize that the wrong answers are scientifically correct.

I wonder how many students got “wrong” answers on the FCAT because their teachers taught them too much. How many “F” schools would have higher grades if those scientifically correct “wrong” answers were counted as correct answers. How many “B” schools would get the extra funding that “A” schools get, if those scientifically correct “wrong” answers were counted as correct answers?

He’s inviting others to examine and fact-check the published materials, and has to file under Florida’s Open Records law to even see the test questions to check for accuracy, *after* the test and its penalties have already been enacted.

You know what they should do? Pass a law that says that if a man’s wife wears a burqa, so too must he…

That’s actually pretty awesome.

I think the best/most fun part would be in presenting the reasons for the law. I’m imagining this extensive explanation in legislation-friendly legalese which essentially adds up to: look, if a man leads a woman to sin by actually displaying any part of his body, it’s his fucking fault for being such a damned he-hussy. So cover it up, slut-boy. Or any harassment you suffer, you have brought upon yourself. Also: loose tempters like you will be the ruin of civilization, y’know.

Yeah, I thought it was something like that; I’ve seen vids of people talking about the ’20 min’ barrier. As I said, I’m just a little worried about her struggling down to floor level, and I know I’d be a lot more confident about it if I can get her into the free-range room with the ball first – I know there’s nowhere for her to disappear to in there (also, lack of beloved, expensive and above all wooden guitars). Thanks for your advice, it makes me feel better. I’m really looking forward to becoming a human rat-transport, it’s going to be heaps of fun!

(I also want to get to the stage where I can convince my dearest that yes, it is perfectly socially acceptable to allow a rat to groom beards, oh yes)

I was at the grocery store today, and we ended up on the cereal aisle as we headed to checkout, where I saw a row of cereal boxes with Ezekial 4:9 on them. Every where you go, it’s the United States of Religion.

Holy-o’s™?
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And it’s disgusting cereal to boot.

Holy-o’s™!!! It’s not just a breakfast cereal, it’s a Religious Experience!
(You’ll eat your penance and like it, young man, or I will not spare the rod!)
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That is a very wee tiny kitteh!*ultra-gentle fingertip behind-the-ear scritching*
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[…]knitting projects depicting the Rape of Dinah, or the Binding of Isaac, or the Death of the Firstborn, or the Cursing of the Out-of-Season Fig Tree…

…the Wanton Calling Into Existence of a Bowl of Doomed Petunias….
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Surely, if the fly is deep-fried, its cooties are, too?
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Well, this county serves as a bedroom county for Springfield, and has two towns over 10,000.

Nixa/Ozark?
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refried beans and tuna mushed in a taco shell

*baaarrrrff!*
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In other news, MOTHERFUCKING BLACK ANTS. In my kitchen.

And bathroom, and living room. Where practical, I stuff their holes with corn starch. They don’t seem to like it much—I suspect that it works its way into/under their nasty little chitinous exoskeletons.

[…]along with some of that gel that the little fuckers eat up and take back to the queen of their colony.

Except that they don’t all go for the gel. We’d been having good luck with it, and enjoyed an all-too-short period of ant-free bliss, when suddenly there was a New Nest In Town; they ignored the gel like nobody’s business. Hence, the corn starch; though I’ve heard that chalk will also work.
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(I also want to get to the stage where I can convince my dearest that yes, it is perfectly socially acceptable to allow a rat to groom beards, oh yes)

When a rat grooms you, you have arrived. On that front, though, rats fancy themselves little dentists of a sort – they will grab your mouth to make you open it and they want “open wide!”. Some rats will proceed to stick their head in and clean teeth.

Oh. Wait. We also need some properly patronizing (matronizing?) language about how, look, this is just for the protection of men. How, y’know, they are so valued/loved, and it is thus the duty of the women responsible for them to make sure they don’t become unduly mauled by beastly mobs or nothin’.

I had a dentist rat. Never been woken by a ratty nose up the nostril, but I have had ratty forepaws up there, and this one would DIG my lips open when he wanted in. He went all the way in past his shoulders, too. His nickname was “living floss”.

I’ve got a serious WTF expression on my face right now. I’d like to be able to say honestly that I can’t believe anybody would think that sort of thing is appropriate, but a lifetime of exposure to other people informs me otherwise.

Mattir:

I’m so happy – Greg Laden has scolded me for poor tone and advised me to “take it back a notch.” Apparently “shame on you” and the word “vengance” are over the line into no-no meanie land.

Editing other people’s comments, however? That’s perfectly fine.

AJ Milne: I love, love, love the term “he-hussy.”

Cicely: “Holy-o’s” reminds me too much of “glory holes.” The phrase, not the actual items.

Agreed the Burqa law would be a better protection of civil rights if only people who force other people to wear burqas were fined/imprisoned.

Ing, no I don’t think I missed your point. The ideals of French society include getting rid of sectarianism. The Burqa is seen as not only a sectarian symbol but as a rejection of French values and a refusal to integrate into French society.

The US has separation of church and state as a core value of its Constitution currently observed more in the breach than anything else. The French actually apply their ideal of Laicite.

Now I’ve been accused of Godwinning, despite not including the tag Hitler anywhere. Is Laden the FtB Dunning Kruger exhibit?

I must admit that it’s really quite entertaining to play Walton for a day or so whilst avoiding finishing up the tax work… (No, I’m not nearly as great as Walton in this sort of argument, but I’m enjoying myself nonetheless, and realizing that I’ve actually learned quite a lot from the Walton-SGBM walls of text, both about argument and substance.)

Beatrice, best of luck at your interview; I’m sure you’ll do fine.*encouraging smile*
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Hi, Serendipitydawg; welcome home.
–*hugs* and *nightmare-killing flamethrower* for Ogvorbis.
(So you can kill them with fire.)
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You know what they should do? Pass a law that says that if a man’s wife wears a burqa, so too must he.

I like it!
:)
After all, then those slutty, slutty women wouldn’t be sexually excited into displaying their assets, thereby sexually exciting the (apparently weak-willed) men into indecorous actions. Everyone WINS!

Cats interacting with humans is very much a thing about feeling secure… It can take a year before they feel safe with all family members. Some individuals never get comfy with more than one or two of the family.

We brought Continuity home as a kitten 9 years ago and for 7 or 8 years of that she wasn’t about to let me or Mr Kristinc touch her at all. She adopted the kids, would rub and nuzzle on them shamelessly and nibble their ears if they didn’t pay attention to her, but could we pet her? Hell no. After a long time she graduated to allowing us to stoke her but only in the correct approved fashion (down the spine, in one direction only, not too hard, not too tickly, don’t touch the ears or tail). Last year she climbed in my lap for the first time and I thought I would pass out from the shock.

She’s a cat with a large personal space bubble. When we take her to the vet she maintains a sort of genteel, frozen horror, like the Queen Mum if someone slapped her on the back and asked her how they were hangin’.

Then you penalize the people who force the women to wear the burqas — not the women themselves. The French law should eliminate the penalty against wearers, maintain the penalty against men who force women or girls to wear it, and also levy that penalty against women who force other women or girls to wear it (with mitigation of penalties in, say, the case of a mother forced by the father to dress the daughter in a burqa).

This is more appealing to me than any wholesale ban. But, I still don’t see this as a solution to the problem of women being forced to be shut in their homes as a result. I cannot think of any method of punishing burqas or those forcing others to wear them that doesn’t practically result in some pretty negative consequences to the women in the worst situations.

I used to be for a ban. I am so disgusted by what the burqa represents. But since Taslima’s threads on prostitution and consent, I can no longer support a ban that will make an autonomous choice of expressing one’s self and views (even if it is a choice to submit/accept the backwards thinking symbolized by the burqa) illegal.

Can any top-down solution work for getting rid of those fucking demeaning burqas? Am I being dismissive of those who choose to wear them, and who don’t find it demeaning themselves? I don’t want to be, but I have a hard time as viewing them as anything but symbols of oppression.

Can any top-down solution work for getting rid of those fucking demeaning burqas?

The only thing I can think of is to aggressively teach that women have the right to be free and comfortable, that what we wear is not necessarily about the viewer, that we own our bodies, and that men have the responsibility for their attitudes and actions.

Every time someone wolf whistles at a woman on the street or yells at her from a car, every time a teenager is slut shamed for her clothing, every time a woman elects to wear a long sleeved top on a hot day rather than a more comfortable tank so she won’t be leered at, that’s the same line of thought that leads to burqas.

Good evening
Damn, that nasty cold still has the upper hand but at least I could go to work.
I hate hate hate being sick and I have been almost non-stop since November. Coincidentially that’s about the same time my crisis started.
Sometimes it would be nice if dualism were true

Ogvobis
I’m so sorry
Whisky is coming out of your USB port now.

Dianne
Oh, English is an option. We’Re already watching and reading stuff in English. I’m fascinated by #1’s “English”. She doesn’t speak many actual words, but she makes up pronounciation and intonation perfectly.
She has said that she’d like to learn more and I hope I can keep her occupied with that until she can start school next year. The fact that I could keep her from school two more years (she’s been born 5 days after the crucial date) is frightening.

++++

I’m also tired of atheists, especially white Western ones, insisting that burqas must be banned, regardless of the consequences to women whose male relatives won’t let them leave the house without one.

Who do they think is “helped” by such a ban?
The woman who buys into the burka on her own has her personal freedom limited and the one who is forced to wear it is cut off from any support structure she’d need to get out of it.
But it scores cheap points with rightwingers at the expense of women.
Yeah, very feminist…

That is exactly what the French law does. The fine for women wearing a burqua is Euros 150. For men who force women to wear it, much bigger fine and up to 2 years in jail.

And what do you think are the actual chances of a man being convicted of this if his wife is caught wearing a burka?
Version A: “I follow the laws of the prophet, here are 150€”
Version B: “He forced me to do it”
Now you’re in a situation where you are very likely to be with small children, without a job, in a community who sees you as the worst scum on earth, with a husband who might be inclined to murder you or have you murdered.
Yeah, that really sounds like a plausible option.
How about this: No ban on burkas but a broad support system for women how are in abusive relationships or for that matter suffer from abusive parents?
But no, it’s so much easier to make it all her job.

You know what they should do? Pass a law that says that if a man’s wife wears a burqa, so too must he.

Rebecca Watson’s trying to track down a twitter acquaintance, intuitivegal1, who’s apparently suicidal. She’s in SoCal and they’re trying to get her location. See Rebecca’s Twitter feed and here: tweet link

The problem with banning the burqua is that Muslims aren’t stupid.
When the anti-burqua law was first proposed, initially it just banned them. Then someone pointed out that they couldn’t just ban the burqua, so it was broadened to also ban Jewish skullcaps and large cross jewelry.
Muslims were not fooled (nor should they have been).

Then, of course, is the issue that by banning it (especially like that), it came across as a “we, in power, are telling you, who we rule, how to live.” The Muslim community, offended, now ascribes the burqua symbolic power of proving that a woman (and by extension, her family) as Muslim. It became about identity.

Excellent. But the narrative in the “west” is that women wear heels and makeup over masculine protests. Many (?most) men will say, if asked, “Oh, but I find women so much more beautiful without makeup/in shoes they can walk in.” But somehow the women they choose to symbolize the ideal always have on visible* makeup and six inch spikes.

*That is, makeup that is clearly there AS makeup rather than just something to enhance the wearer’s looks without being obvious.

The only thing I can think of is to aggressively teach that women have the right to be free and comfortable, that what we wear is not necessarily about the viewer, that we own our bodies, and that men have the responsibility for their attitudes and actions.

When we’re done teaching Islamic women that, could we also teach Christian, Jewish, atheist, etc women the same thing? Because I find it hard to believe that a lot of what I see people wearing on the street is consistent with someone who believes she has the right to be free and comfortable. Or, for that matter, that what I see in the mirror is always consistent with same.

*That is, makeup that is clearly there AS makeup rather than just something to enhance the wearer’s looks without being obvious.

Absolutely.
I’ve just recently started to wear make-up again as part of my “take care of yourself again” plan and actually you can paint your face like a peacock if you want to*, but yeah, I’d just like to see some guys do the whole routine for one week.
And one time menstruational cramps.
Not because I want them to suffer, they can have all the painkiller they want. Just so that they know what they’re talking about.
And in adition to that, one Saturday night of clubbing/dancing/walking home just like women do, with all the “rape prevention” we get taught, with having had your ass groped like apples examined in the supermarket and your whole existence reduced to the binary of fuckable/unfuckable.
Only one night.
That might make life easier and discussions less exhausting…

*I think the question isn’t so much what you do but why. Is it about your choice or is this because your choices are severely restricted because although you can chose not to do it it comes at a price?
People should be free to wear as much or as little make-up as they want to, but they should not be expected to wear it (or not to wear it)

Not sure if the link is work safe – the article itself is fine, and the associated pic is a somewhat shapeless big lump, but the video clearly shows a piece being cut from the between the legs region, so YMMV on the worksafeness.

On the big ants – if they’re the big ones, then possibly carpenter ants. Now is beginning to be the time of year that they start foraging for food sources. If they’re just poking around, they’ll be gone in a month or so. If they find happiness within your house, though, you’re screwed.

When a rat grooms you, you have arrived. On that front, though, rats fancy themselves little dentists of a sort – they will grab your mouth to make you open it and they want “open wide!”. Some rats will proceed to stick their head in and clean teeth.

Oh shit, my rats used to do this! Sadie the dumbo would also occasionally try to snag doobies and cigarettes from my lips. She was the coolest rat ever.

QED, the French don’t particularly bother to integrate their Muslim citizens into society in any other ways, from what I can tell.

French society is actually very good at assimilating people from different ethnicities and cultures as long as they buy in to French culture and values. A bit like Rome during the empire.

Your name can be Mahomed or Justin and as long as you speak French and do well at school you can compete to get into one of the top French Universities, all paid for by the French State, and become Minister of Justice like Rashida Dati. [1]

[1] like with the American Dream, the attainment of the French Dream is YKM dependent(your kilometres may vary).

A.R: I’m pretty sure black rats don’t have the history of domestication that typical brown rats found in pet stores do. I’m also fairly sure that brown rats taken from the wild would require similar amounts of socialisation.

When we’re done teaching Islamic women that, could we also teach Christian, Jewish, atheist, etc women the same thing?

Actually I was thinking in terms of teaching it across the board to all women/people, yes. My feeling is if we truly committed to getting the idea through to everyone, idiocy like headscarves as well as other types of sartorially-sexist idiocy would have a harder time getting a grip on women of all demographic groups.

Caine – “combined with a metronome.”
Any click track while I’m trying to sleep drives me crazy. It just amplifies my insomnia. I’m happy it works for you. Rain, oceans waves on a shore, nighttime Midwest recordings of peepers and crickets & such, are all OK, (I recorded that last one and used it for a sleep aid whenever I was on the road), but tick, tick, tick or the tick-tock of a grandfather clock … AAArrrggggh!
But that’s just me.
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Ms. Daisy Cutter – “Ing, when one of those pseudorandian men can’t get laid, does he rely on an invisible hand?”

OK, one internets for you!
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The movie “Prom” is playing on my TV. The description is “Intersecting stories unfold as high-school students prepare for their seminal event”

Am I the only only who thinks this synopsis writer has a funny bone?

True story: I once invited a first date to a premier of a Kinsey Institute sponsored exhibit entitled “The Art Of Desire”. We’re strolling thru the galleries there was a glass case full of historic Chinese dildos. I remarked “Ahh, that was his seminal work.”

She laughed, we went out several more times, but eventually she decided I was too young for her. I was 50. (and also, too, I’m 12;-)
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Mattir, since my comment at Greg Laden’s is in moderation, I’ll C&P it here:

It’s fairly well known that pathological narcissism results from some fairly serious (and sometimes sublte) problems in early childhood. It’s just that as a culture we work quite hard at not recognizing how our childcare practices (parenting and institutional) contribute to seriously disturbed adults. Empathy is shaped and encouraged by parental care and the overall culture, and while someone may be able to articulate right and wrong, they may not feel it, emotionally, as a normal person does.

I’ll be blunt.

I don’t give a flying fuck about the poor ickle sociopaths and narcissists. They harm people. They’ve harmed people very dear to me. They can die in a fucking fire.

Also, you do know that some men deliberately intoxicate themselves in order to give themselves the “courage” to abuse women? They can go fuck themselves, too.

And I’ll add: I saw this bullshit in action during the Hugo Schwyzer débacle, with 12-step assholes whining, “But, but, but Hugo is an aaaaaaaaddict!!! He couldn’t heeeeellllp having tried to kill his ex-girlfriend!!” Abusers have so many damn people carrying their water for them. They don’t need any more.

I had an interesting photoshoot today. Among my many jobs at my lab is taking pix of our infernal retinal imaging devices.

I took a few of the instrument, and then stuck my head in the Grad Student’s Corral, and picked out two likely victims subjects, and asked them to participate. One was an African-American female, and one was a balding white guy. To be honest, they were the only folks in the corral.

I took 25 shots, with only the flash and fluorescent overhead lighting, and as it turns out, (I don’t have sophistimicated tools), the flash bounce off the balding person’s head, and the sheer absorption of the Black woman’s skin made for a bunch of crappy pix. I have a couple that are usable, after cropping and Photoshopping.

Wife and I went to the casino yesterday. We each had $25.00. We each left with over $200. Went back today. And lost most of it.* But it really is fun.

I have tried multiple times to get treatment through work but, though I ‘present symptoms of PTSD’, I do not ‘have’ PTSD. Weird shit.

Is this a valid diagnosis, or is the insurance company trying to fuck you over to save money?

My insurance company has not been involved at all. These are doctors assigned by the WTC post incident monitoring.

And then he went and fucked it up.

No, he didn’t fuck it up. He accomplished exactly what he and his 1% cronies wanted. The US is now much closer to being a police state (for the 99%) and the 1% have far more political and economic power. He protected the oil companies and kissed Koch ass.

I’ve found that white noise helps me. Not as much as I would like, but it does help.

I’ve tried white noise, natural sounds, etc, and I stay up trying to figure out what they are saying.

You live in Wales? Whoa! What did you do?*

I was escaping from a failed love affair with a sheep.

Oh, you were in Scotland?

Ogvorbis, hugs if you want them, and I still think you need to see an outside psychiatrist with significant experience in PTSD and forensics, not a tool of the system.

I’m working on it. My health insurance company requires a pre-approval for mental health. And, of course, this coming from something involving work should, according to the health insurance company, be handled through worker’s comp.

I think it is in section C-22** of the insurance manual.

Whisky is coming out of your USB port now.

Scotch whiskey?

I am afraid there…there…there is more than one Louis in the world.

The world is not enough!

* I did get three books off of Amazon, so I didn’t lose all my winning — all palaeontology books.
** Catch-22

Initially, lo those many years ago, when these things were being mooted I was broadly in support based on my first thoughts. Then I reflected on the words of the comedian Mark Thomas who, when commenting on the Wars to Liberate Women in Afghanistan and Iraq,* said “Fly my sisters! Be free! You are now able to get tattoos and have Western Imperialist style clitoral piercings!”.

He was being sarcastic.

So I thought about that sarcasm, and politics and what not, and I realised in the depths of my privilege addled brain that I had had Second Thoughts. Scary.

As others have mentioned, where does the burden of the burka ban truly lie? Is the effect of the burka ban in France to liberate women, or to impose French cultural norms on a sub-population in France at the expense of its most vulnerable members? Well it clearly isn’t a simple equation. I mean, obviously, no one is in favour of the burka as anything other than a historical relic.** A hand-me-down of cultural misogyny. I’m not sure replacing it with our own cultural misogyny is vastly better. It’s better to some degree. At least the women freed from the burka have greater degrees of freedom in choosing which pieces of cultural misogyny they wish to be exposed to. Not complete freedom, naturally, that’s the nature of cultural phenomena, but more freedom.

I agree with the “bottom up” approach advocated by many. This might be the only sense in which I am a Marxist, but I definitely think that removing the need for such conditions as religion and identity based on religion is how we remove these types of problems. You don’t remove the conditions these women labour under by skipping down the street removing burkas from their heads. Well, to be fair it can be one part of a possible solution, but it has to be coupled to more aggressive pushes from below. Education, facilities for women to get out of abusive relationships etc etc etc. This is the definitions of a “not one size fits all” problem. What frustrates me the most, and this might be in part due to my ignorance of the French system, is the burka ban seems to have come relatively unaccompanied by the commensurate push from below. This means the push from above falls on those least able to bear it when they lack the support structures needed to help.

Louis

* What? They were actually about imperialism and oil? Say it ain’t so!

** I was talking about this with some Arabian mates of mine from uni days, and they said “how else do you think gay men go outside with each other if not in a burka?”. I have no idea if they were telling the truth, we have a good and generally humorous relationship and this may have been part of a long standing game of “let’s see what Louis will believe” (to be fair I do the same to them). But if it isn’t, whoa, that will take some unpicking! Mind you, it seems kinda backwards to me. On many levels…

Driving, night-time, heavy rain. Y-junction: I’m driving upwards and turning right, and have right of way) and the driver coming from the side road pulls halfway across the road I’m on and stops and

BRAKE

SKID

[astonishingly slow-motion film of the hapless driver looming towards me as I’m about to plough the front-end of my car into the right side of his chest using the drivers’ side door as a battering ram … and …]

Fly my sisters! Be free! You are now able to get tattoos and have Western Imperialist style clitoral piercings!”.

He was being sarcastic.

And slut shamming.

French society is actually very good at assimilating people from different ethnicities and cultures as long as they buy in to French culture and values. A bit like Rome during the empire.

Your name can be Mahomed or Justin and as long as you speak French and do well at school you can compete to get into one of the top French Universities, all paid for by the French State, and become Minister of Justice like Rashida Dati. [1]

Yes yes, pay no attention to all those youth riots or our growing Nationalist parties!

An Italian museum has begun burning its collection of contemporary artworks to protest against harsh budget cuts that have left many cultural institutions out of pocket.

The Casoria Contemporary Art Museum near Naples held a bonfire in its grounds for the first torching of a painting by French artist Severine Bourguignon, who was in favour of the protest and followed it on Skype.

Museum director Antonio Manfredi said: “Our 1,000 artworks are headed for destruction anyway because of the indifference of the government.”

He plans to burn three art works a week in an initiative dubbed “Art War”.

Oh no, I guarantee he wasn’t slut shaming. He wasn’t saying that clitoral piercings etc were bad, far from it. He was mocking our (the audience’s) own rather shallow appreciation of what feminism is. It’s clearer in the context of the show I guess. It’s a point about culturally imposed conformity, not about the badness of fashion X.

His point was mine, that in freeing people from one form of oppression, if all we’re doing is swapping oppressions, then we’re Doing It Wrong. If we’re lessening the oppression, opening up the chances to be less oppressed, then we’re Doing It Kinda Right.

This still baffles me. I understand that it’s a real change in perception, but I don’t think it happens to everyone.

I had to dodge a drunk driver a few years ago, and I never experienced any kind of time slowing down. Instead, it felt like my brain was speeding up, so that I had the entire situation analyzed while my body was braking and cranking the steering wheel. But everything around me was still moving at normal speed.

Then again, I’ve never been in a situation where I actually thought I was going to die. I’ve been in several situations where I knew that I or someone else might die if one more thing went wrong, and I had to react very quickly to prevent that thing from happening. I only experienced the “thoughts speeding up” feeling, and only that one time. Maybe it’s different when you think you’re about to die.

thoughts speeding/time slowing: I’ve had happen several times during hockey games, when I was totally in the zone, and nothing anywhere on the ice could happen too quickly for me to miss it. It was like the puck was a fast-moving partner-animal coming in to land on me. Later, when I’ve been driving and dodged cars about to crash into me, the same clarity of time happened and I *recognized* it – only now it was seeing everything on the road, all the objects, all the possible escape routes laid out like a familiar room, instead of everything on the ice.

Huh. There was one time in high school where a girl in her car plowed nose-first into the passenger door where I was sitting. (t-boning, I think it’s called?) It was in a residential neighborhood and we were going quite slowly anyway, and the limited damage attests to the slow speeds, but I’ve always been a little confused as to how the accident could have happened at all as slowly as I remember her going. It seemed like she was coming at us at like five miles an hour, so why couldn’t she stop? Reading these stories I wonder now if it was my perception that makes it seem so slow in my memory.

Then you penalize the people who force the women to wear the burqas — not the women themselves. The French law should eliminate the penalty against wearers, maintain the penalty against men who force women or girls to wear it, and also levy that penalty against women who force other women or girls to wear it (with mitigation of penalties in, say, the case of a mother forced by the father to dress the daughter in a burqa).

I have been struggling with this question for some time. Banning the wearing of clothing types feels wrong, but so does allowing women to be forced to wear specific clothing types.
I like your take on it Ms Daisy Cutter. Thanks. At least as an ideal position. Not sure aout the practicallities though, but then such things are never easy & easiness should not stand in the way of doing what is right.

If anything you should apply face visibility laws/restrictions for the secular reason of safety (can’t wear a ski mask in a bank).

And this from Ing. QFT
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Swedish culture minister ……

I have no trouble resolving this one though. Ugh!

————

I am afraid there…there…there is more than one Louis in the world.

I’m pleased to say, given the obvious distress that this is causing, that I am not one of them. You have no need to eliminate me! ;-)

Some years ago, the four of us decided to take advantage of a beautiful winter day and head down to Gettysburg National Battlefield. The sky was a brilliant blue thanks to a cold front coming down from Canada.

As we approached Harrisburg on I-81, just south of the I-78 interchange, the weather went from bright sunlight to cloudy to spitting snow to a snow squall with 20 yard visibility.

I noticed a man, standing on the edge of the median, waving his arms. I hit the brakes hard and went into a skid in the minivan. I tapped the accelerator to bring me out of the four wheel skid and began tapping the brake.

Out of the snow loomed the bottom of a tractor trailer. Not the lower part of it, I was staring strait at the bottom of it. I steered right, felt the front end start to push, tapped the brakes to bring the back end around, and skidded by with, maybe, a foot to spare.

My speed was down to about 40mph as I swept by a Land Rover on its roof. I kept pumping the brake but there was a layer of icy slush under two inches of snow. As we rolled and skidded towards the back end of a tractor trailer and a Suburban blocking the left land and the area which should have had the dotted line, I was thinking, slowly and clearly, Okay, do I go in nose first and take the collateral damage of airbag deployment, or do I slide sideways and risk the lateral deceleration for the kids>

Wife’s voice broke my thoughts. “Parking brake NOW!” She pulled up on the parking brake, the back and kicked out and I was able to power-slide through a small opening between the jammed vehicles and a Mercedes on the shoulder. She released the brake and I continued to steer through a slolom of wrecked cars and trucks, and those who had just stopped.

We passed the last of the wrecks and I pulled over in the lee of a Ford Excursion and caught my breath. The whole thing could not have taken more than 15 seconds from seeing the man waving his arms (thank you, whoever you are — I reacted a full second or two earlier and that, most likely, allowed me to get through unscathed) to the moment when I once again had full control (at 15mph). Yet I can remember every moment of that with absolute clarity. It did not feel like time slowed down; rather, as Pterryx puts it, my mind sped up.

We called 911. The operator said that response was on the way. She asked if we had been hit and, when I said no, she asked that I keep moving so the responders could concentrate on the vehicles involved. So I did. A quarter mile later we were on dry pavement and back in the bright blue sunshine.

We had lunch at Popeye’s, visited the battlefield, had dinner at Fuddruckers, and had an uneventful drive home.

The one time I remember time slowing down, I was falling out of my bunk bed at college. I remember quite distinctly thinking “Hm. If I land on my head on that corner, I’m going to die.” So after some consideration of my options I decided to twist my body around to avoid it.

Over here, there was bright sunshine, and it was stupidly cold, with lots of icy wind.

Well, the European Union is doomed:

And/or Merkel is doomed. Whichever comes first.

OK. So I had some oil heating up for deep frying fish pieces for fish tacos. I discovered a fly had deep fried itself in there. A quandary: I fished the fly out. Now do I use the oil? Surely there’s nothing in the oil that can actually hurt me. . it’s all a disgust thing. Part of me chafes at wasting it and says “get the fuck over it; it’s a first world problem. Use the oil.” Another part of me is squicked.

What to do?

Use the oil. The fly is out, what could the oil possibly be contaminated with?

So that’s a yes for Rhinebeck. (As soon as I have signed the contract.)

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Personally, I’d make the menz wear a pink burqa, see how they like being told they have no choice in what they wear, nor the colour of it.

*twitching in horror* That should do it.

She’s a cat with a large personal space bubble. When we take her to the vet she maintains a sort of genteel, frozen horror, like the Queen Mum if someone slapped her on the back and asked her how they were hangin’.

ROTFLMAO!

Your name can be Mahomed or Justin and as long as you speak French and do well at school you can compete to get into one of the top French Universities, all paid for by the French State, and become Minister of Justice like Rashida Dati. [1]

…Yeah. And if you don’t get up there, you won’t get a job, and you have no future. Then the police comes, chases two teenagers into a place where they end up electrocuting themselves, and you set cars on fire. Then Sarko gives a speech about Kärcher®; he fortunately comes to his senses, but he doesn’t do much if anything about the basic problem.

I’ve had that perception distortion happen a few times, when required to react faster than normal (ie car accidents, dropping stuff etc)

Usually I feel very frustrated, because my body doesn’t speed up, just my perception of time that slows down, so I feel like I’m wading through treacle.

One exception to that is the time I nearly dropped my (then) 6 month old son, headfirst onto a tiled floor. I wasn’t holding him properly, whilst preparing a bottle of milk for him. He jumped backwards in my arm and popped out of the crook in my elbow. Time slowed down, reactions speeded up & I managed to drop kick him (really it was I managed to get my foot under him & break his fall) just before he hit the ground. I managed to catch him on the rebound off my foot.

Time returned to normal, he looked at me accusingly (as much as a 6MO baby can) and burst into tears. I murmered a word of thanks to my adrenal gland before the shock of the alternate timeline set in.

Another exception was when I was in a car that rolled (as a passenger). Once the car stopped moving (upside down), I was trapped in the front passenger seat & couldn’t move (the roof “above” (below?) me had been stove in).
Then I smelled petrol & the next thing I knew I was out of the car & 5 meters away from it, accelerating before I stopped, returned to the car to help my friends out. It seemed that the petrol & fear of being trapped in a burning car was sufficient to help me find the seat belt buckle, commando crawl past the heads of my friends, and out the 6″ gap created by one of my frineds in the back seat as he attempted to wind the window down (up?). I have no idea how I did it & none of my friends were aware of me going past them. Fortunately none had foot prints on their faces, and me being outside did help them all to get out safely, but it showed me, that no matter how moral my conscious mind is, my sub conscious is very much of the selfish survival type.
The car didn’t catch fire.

But, I still don’t see this as a solution to the problem of women being forced to be shut in their homes as a result.

I don’t know that there is any way to prevent each and every woman from being barred from leaving the house, honestly. Just as there is no way to prevent all domestic abuse in advance. All that can be done is to prosecute the wrongdoers and to promote a culture that encourages women to unveil and to seek a place in the wider world.

Can any top-down solution work for getting rid of those fucking demeaning burqas?

I rather doubt it.

Another thought: A ban would allow imams and mullahs to position the burqa as “transgressive” and “rebellious.”

Giliell:

But it scores cheap points with rightwingers at the expense of women. Yeah, very feminist…

Yep. Also scores points with the sort of menz who think that the only “liberation” women need is from our clothing. Unless, of course, we’re too old or fat or ugly or something. One silver lining to Taslima Nasreen’s anti-porn and anti-BDSM posts is that they startled the shit out of a lot of those types.

Dianne:

When we’re done teaching Islamic women that, could we also teach Christian, Jewish, atheist, etc women the same thing? Because I find it hard to believe that a lot of what I see people wearing on the street is consistent with someone who believes she has the right to be free and comfortable. Or, for that matter, that what I see in the mirror is always consistent with same.

Agreed.

Carlie, between the Raid I sprayed yesterday and the ant stakes I put in the ground tonight, I strongly suspect they’re not going to settle in here. I haven’t seen any today or tonight.

QED:

French society is actually very good at assimilating people from different ethnicities and cultures as long as they buy in to French culture and values.

I see Ing already refuted this horseshit. I guess the riots we saw the other year had nothing to do with racism or poverty caused by being barred from certain professions, eh? Next you’ll be telling me that the banlieux are a Gallic version of Levittown.

Louis: I would agree with you. If there’s a societal phenomenon you (the general “you”) wish to change, and it touches on various hot buttons like gender or personal identity, mandates are going to be counterproductive. You have to persuade people.

Ogvorbis:

These are doctors assigned by the WTC post incident monitoring.

If you believe they are trustworthy and competent, I take your word for it, but honestly I don’t understand why the fact that you suffer “PTSD-like symptoms” isn’t enough to merit treatment thereof in their eyes. I hope you manage to get some decent therapy, hopefully at little to no expense to you.

And another occasion, I was sat at an intersection, when I looked into my mirror and saw a Saab towing a trailer appropaching me sideways. I thought to myself “I don’t think he can stop before he hits me”. So I calmly put the indicator on & moved into the next lane. The Saab stopped about 6″ from the back of the car that I had been behind. I was always puzzled about why I used my indicator. I really didn’t have that much time to waste in reacting.

Over here, there was bright sunshine, and it was stupidly cold, with lots of icy wind.

Well, the European Union is doomed:

And/or Merkel is doomed. Whichever comes first.

OK. So I had some oil heating up for deep frying fish pieces for fish tacos. I discovered a fly had deep fried itself in there. A quandary: I fished the fly out. Now do I use the oil? Surely there’s nothing in the oil that can actually hurt me. . it’s all a disgust thing. Part of me chafes at wasting it and says “get the fuck over it; it’s a first world problem. Use the oil.” Another part of me is squicked.

What to do?

Use the oil. The fly is out, what could the oil possibly be contaminated with?

So that’s a yes for Rhinebeck. (As soon as I have signed the contract.)

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Personally, I’d make the menz wear a pink burqa, see how they like being told they have no choice in what they wear, nor the colour of it.

*twitching in horror* That should do it.

She’s a cat with a large personal space bubble. When we take her to the vet she maintains a sort of genteel, frozen horror, like the Queen Mum if someone slapped her on the back and asked her how they were hangin’.

ROTFLMAO!

Your name can be Mahomed or Justin and as long as you speak French and do well at school you can compete to get into one of the top French Universities, all paid for by the French State, and become Minister of Justice like Rashida Dati. [1]

…Yeah. And if you don’t get up there, you won’t get a job, and you have no future. Then the police comes, chases two teenagers into a place where they end up electrocuting themselves, and you set cars on fire. Then Sarko gives a speech about Kärcher®; he fortunately comes to his senses, but he doesn’t do much if anything about the basic problem.

DaughterSpawn just said the perfect thing: “Mom, you have compassion for criminals because you’ve worked with abused preschoolers and seen how criminals are made.” Yeah, that’s it. On a Venn diagram of criminals and victims, there’s a whole lotta overlap. I don’t want the criminals out and about hurting people, but I’m not signing up for vengance either. I know a lot of specifics about how the people who hurt me were hurt as children. It doesn’t make them non-culpable for what they did to me, but it sure helps me understand the context that my own pain came from.

It doesn’t make them non-culpable for what they did to me, but it sure helps me understand the context that my own pain came from.

I think it’s interesting how differently that works for different people. One of the biggest things I had to stop doing was trying to figure out what caused my ex to act the way he did, because I stalled completely on the why. But other people I know do seem to get some utility out of knowing.

I had one “time slowing” experience about ten years ago. I was riding my bike through some woods and crossed a little footbridge, and right at the end of the bridge the path took a 45-degree turn to the left, requiring a quick turn. Unfortunately, the bridge was wet, and I was thinking about something else.
I don’t remember what that “something else” was, but memory tells me that, while flying over my handlebars toward the hard, hard ground, I not only had time to finish the thought I was having, but time to realize that I was having a crash–and to think something like “I’m flying over the handlebars here.” It seems like a lot went through my mind in a span of time that couldn’t have been much more than a quarter of a second.
I’m trying to remember where I read this, but I recall an experiment that tried to create conditions that would cause the time-slowing effect. I remember it involved having people fall backwards off a platform and try to read numbers flashing too fast to be read under normal conditions.
And I recall a hypothesis that, when this happens, it’s not that your perception of time changes any, it’s your memory that gets altered, or forms in such a way that time seems to have been stretched out.

CC, the context bit came a LONG way after the hurt happened, and could only happen because I was not being hurt anymore. I’m amused by the “Mr. Mattir, MRA” label, but I’m also feeling a Waltonesque level of despair about our criminal justice system, which is pretty strange since I’m nowhere near as non-punitive as Walton.

The only time slowing memory I have is one that actually gave me a mild case of PTSD (fortunately, I haven’t had any issues with this in years).
I had to have surgery. Surgery went fine. I woke up in the recovery ward. The doctor asked me how I was feeling. I complained of pain (okay, more accurately, I went “ARGGGH OWWIE SHIT FUCK”). So I got morphine injected into my IV bag.

Surprise! Esteleth is allergic to morphine!

I went into anaphylactic shock within seconds. I clearly remember a few things in normal-time: the doctor reaching down and ripping my IV out, and him shouting “BED 7 NEEDS 20 CC EPI AND A CARDIAC NEEDLE STAT!” In slo-mo, I remember seeing a person (doc? nurse? random person who decided to wear scrubs and wander into an OR recovery ward?) sprint veeeery sloooowly across the room, fitting a HUGE ASS needle to a vial as he ran, then skidding to a stop next to my bed, ripping off my gown, holding me down (I was convulsing), then stabbing me in the heart.

The thing that is odd is that the thing that traumatized me the most (????) is the holding-down part. See, I was 14, and still very awkward about the whole having-breasts thing. A strange man held me down, shifted my breasts for access to my heart, then stabbed me.

Sigh. Psychology. I was scared of needles (including sewing needles) for about eighteen months, and issues relating to my breasts for about six months after that.

I was always puzzled about why I used my indicator. I really didn’t have that much time to waste in reacting.

The mind is weird like that. I mentioned above that I had to dodge a drunk driver once. I was just far enough away to avoid him; others weren’t so lucky. I pulled over to help, and I distinctly remember that I turned off my radio before getting out of the car. I guess it was just a habit. I felt pretty bad about it afterwards, and sometimes still do, but the lost half a second wouldn’t have made a difference in the final outcome, which was pretty bad.

Esteleth:

The only time slowing memory I have is one that actually gave me a mild case of PTSD

It wouldn’t surprise me to find a lot of overlap between time-slowing and post-traumatic stress. I was pretty messed up for a few months after the accident I witnessed/dodged, and I still have some trouble with driving at night, undivided highways, etc. Of the dangerous situations I’ve been in, that’s the only one where I experienced any perceptual changes, and the only one that gave me real problems afterward.

Esteleth: At [Very large Midwestern hospital where A. R’s sister works], they only use cardiac needles for pulseless arrhythmia resistant to IV administration of epi. You must have been very messed up for your doctor to choose that route of administration, given the significant risk or tamponade, severing a coronary artery, causing pneumothorax, causing severe damage to teh myocardium, etc.

A.R., considering that I went into full anaphylactic shock within a few seconds of administration (that is, within a few seconds of it being added to my saline drip bag), complete with constricted breathing, massive hives, and convulsions, I must have been in a very bad state indeed.
My guess also is that as the morphine was in my IV (and it was thus ripped out), they didn’t have a good access point for IV administration.

Esteleth: Yeah, that’s pretty typical of sensitization prior to a full-on Type I reaction. Do you have any family members with opioid allergies? IIRC opioid allergies are somewhat associated with the HLA-2 gene. (FWIW, you may be able to use Phenylpiperidines (fentanyl, Demerol), as they tend not to provoke reactions in Morphine group sensitized patients)

I got Demerol post-op several years later. Only side effect was that it made me very sleepy. So, in other words, it worked as advertised. But, they did make me take the first dose at the hospital and watched me very closely for the first hour or so.

Penicillin allergies tend to be Type II Reactions(IgG-mediated), and slow to show symptoms. But autoimmunity, especially if involving the HLA-2 gene, could indicate a heritable predisposition to Type I reactions to opioids. Granted, the inheritance of allergies is very poorly understood.

A.R., that goes with my understanding as well. The autoimmune condition (a form of lupus) is inherited – it is all over that branch of the family. So while I haven’t inherited it, I may have inherited a predisposition to Type I reactions. FWIW, the only long-term consequence of my little adventure is … an autoimmune disorder (fortunately mild, and getting milder over time) where my joints swell up and I get random aches. Apparently my fascia inflames.
Make of THAT what you will.

Negatory! I had a chronic goiter, no symptoms of thyroid disfuntion for, oh, 20 years. Then they found a nodule, the nodule started growing (still no symptoms or T3/T4 or TSH abberance). Did a biopsy, found it was cancerous. Cut that fucker out then blasted the corpse with radioiodine
*shrug* So unless autoimmune diseases can do that, then that’s not the etiology.

:( I was going to try to read some of those blogs. I am really excited about a few of the descriptions. Except when I tried, my head immediately started hurting and all the words started running together. I have no idea what this is about, but I don’t like it :(

I apparently have gotten myself banned or shoved into moderation at Laden’s blog, but here’s my comment anyway. What an obtuse douchebag pearl-clutcher.

Greg, Mattir is a woman.

What-ever. There are MRA chicks.

Yeah, and there are condescending asshole men who preen about their totes ally-ness while belittling women who have just stated that they are rape and abuse survivors because said woman doesn’t agree with them, has actual relevant professional experience in the topics under discussion, and has the unfeminine temerity to keep arguing.

For those of you who want a link to the last incarnation of TET to deal with the subject: Linky here.

One suggestion that would work really well:

Give money to ex- and Muslim women who propagandize against hijab. – ॐ

This would allow (ex)muslim women themselves to take charge of the problems of the niquab/hijab. Empowering the people that are most qualified and responsibly motivated to resolve the problem to actually solve the problem! Surely that is not too much to ask the French government?

(The Saudi’s are empowering future menZ through pumping seas of cash into their wahhabist outreaches. (Feeding the wolf called “hate”.) This shit really does work- there is no reason it can’t work the other way too.)

I would like to believe that we French have a better separation of church and state than, say, the USA. But I feel we still have some way to go. By example, we still have to elect a President who is also not a Catholic.
A colleague from India who has lived some time in France once got me thinking when he defined my country like this:
“France is a Catholic country pretending it is not”

French society is actually very good at assimilating people from different ethnicities and cultures as long as they buy in to French culture and values.

I’m afraid this translates to “as long as I don’t see any difference between you and me, I will not treat you differently”.
No, we are not that good. To put it simply, we don’t have many people from Maghreb or Africa in positions of power. During election time, I have seen more middle-eastern candidates in my past three years in Toronto than my whole life in France.
I remember a French deputy from the North of France sadly commenting on this. He remembered how he had Polish schoolmates, due to a wave of immigration from Poland, and how less than 20 years after he had a Polish colleague in the local city council, as both were starting a political career. The same is not true for our people of color.

I am very sad to report that little Chamomile died earlier this evening. By appearances, the wound to his left ear went septic and as he had no reserves was unable to fight off the infection even with the help of antibiotics. His death was quite quick, as he simple faded over the course of about 15 minutes.

Very sad, but my sister-in-law and I are not at all surprised this happened. But at least we tried.

Oh great, my cold has developed into an ear infection.
At 4am I was woken up by pain so bad I took some of the medication left over from my wisdom tooth extraction.
Looks like another round of antibiotics for me…

French society is actually very good at assimilating people from different ethnicities and cultures as long as they buy in to French culture and values. A bit like Rome during the empire.

Yeah, just stop being so damn foreign, will you.
You notice the difference between assimilation and integration?
Merguez and Taboulé don’t make multiculturalism.

I don’t know that there is any way to prevent each and every woman from being barred from leaving the house, honestly.

Especially if nobody will ever notice (or care) that this woman isn’t leaving the house anymore.
If there’s one group of women I want out in open society as much as possible the it’s that group of women. I want them to see and learn. If they’re doing it voluntarily, their minds will not be changed by a ban. If they’re forced, they’re no longer able to make a room for themselves in the world where they might escape to.

Ogvorbis

Scotch whiskey?

That, I’m afraid, is not possible.
You can have Irish whiskey (Conemara or Kilbegan) or you can have Scotch Whiskey (Auchentoshan or Glenfarclas). Things not made from barley or at least rye are not whiskey and not allowed inside this house.

+++
I am sure that the two times I very nearly had serious accidents (absolutely not my fault both times), the electrical impulses that said “lift foot from gas, push down breaks hard, stabilize steering wheel, honk” did not pass through the conscious part of my brain.

So sad about little Chamomile. The latest Plummet update is that the vet now wants to keep him longer on the IV – we were told 2 nights, now maybe 3. He’ll come home this time, but he’ll need phosphate binders, antibiotics and antacids. And the next crash will be the end. Here he is in happier times, posing with some vanilla.

The Sailor, for me, using white noise isn’t a way to get to sleep as much as it is a way to stay on a lighter level, where I don’t experience such a loss of control. It also tends to prevent me being aware of dreaming, if I do.

Without white noise, I’d be back to getting about 2 hours of sleep every 3 days.

Sorry about Chamomile, rowanvt. Sounds like you did everything possible and more.

.
.
.
@ Ogvorbis #557

You live in Wales? Whoa! What did you do?*

I was escaping from a failed love affair with a sheep.

Oh, you were in Scotland?

No no no, it’s the Welsh who are sheep-shaggers. We Scots just do it with bagpipes. Or possibly haggis.
.
.
re time slowing down/brain speeding up – wot, you mean I don’t get to wave my hands and go all hallelujah hallelujah I believe in merkles!!!! after all? Spoilsports.

That must have been something to see, though, Catnip – crawling under (?) the heads of the other passengers and out, without any of them noticing. Glad you could get them out and all survived and the car didn’t go up in flames, fuck.
.
.
whisky whisky whisky (unless it’s Irish of course).

Wife and I went to the casino yesterday. We each had $25.00. We each left with over $200. Went back today. And lost most of it.* But it really is fun.

I went there during the Hitchens thing at the GAC. Hadn’t played Blackjack there for ages, but I noted that on some of the tables, if the dealer has 22 and a player has 21, it’s a standoff ! That’s scandalous, frankly. Why not say outright, “we don’t like anyone to win here”.

So, yeah, I have an ear infection and a nice big pack of antibiotics.
And I can absolutely understand why children with undetected ear infections suffer the same psychological trauma as abused children. That fucking hurts.

I remember those pains from my childhood Gilliel. I was frequently undiagnosed deaf & with earache. Usually for months at a time. You really do have my sympathy.

Plan is, mother of child will contact teacher for meeting to find out full story & get promise of action from him. If not satisfactory, then both of us will request formal meeting for explanation of how schools bullying policy is being implemented. If still no action, then next stage will be principle involvement & ask him to intervene.

Similar things happened to child#1 last year, but she was able to deal with it well & resolved it herself with teacher’s help. However, she is well socialised & emotionally robust. Child#2 is not so well socialised. Much brighter than his peers & doesn’t understand others are not. Doesn’t understand how to deal with the bullies. Also, he has eczema (badly) & (as thus was the trigger for the bullies) he tried explaining to them auto immune genetic disorders. Being a 9 year old Nerd is never easy, as I can attest to.

The “sensible” (read: conformist, cowardly, perhaps pragmatic if I’m being kind) part of me advocates the “child#2 keep head down and just get on with life whilst ignoring the bullies as far as possible” tactic.

The more {ahem} “Louis” (read: aggressive, assertive, unwilling to be bullied, loud mouth, violent son of a bitch) part of me advocates the “take a lead weighted baseball bat to school and go to work on their knees” tactic.

The “intelligent” (read: barely existent) part of me hasn’t had enough coffee to discuss the issue of bullying sensibly.

Ehm, the ear infection?
You know, like, bacterial infection of the middle ear?
Well, I also have a bacterial infection of the eye, and of the lung, so, yeah.
Somebody kindly recomended burning candles in my ears but I declined and went with my GP.

Ehm, the ear infection?
You know, like, bacterial infection of the middle ear?

My seemingly snide remark has a basis in science and evidence. 9 out of 10 ear infections (or eye, or lung infections) are causes by viruses. It is very likely that all you are doing with taking antibiotics is helping bugs in an ongoing evolutionary arms race. I didn’t intend to snipe at you, but this is a relevant health issue. Antibiotics are the opium of the General Practitioner in the 21st century.

Antibiotics are the opium of the General Practitioner in the 21st century.

I know, and I’m not exactly keen on them, I prefer to save them for times of need.
But when you have yellow goo dripping out of 2 of 3 orifices, the bets are on that #3 is bacterial, too.
But I hope you will agree that when the diagnosis is done correctly, they’re some of the best stuff ever discovered.

Well cat bites certainly contain bacteria… intravenous antibiotics are, however, very effective, albeit somewhat unpleasant. The oral ab’s that I am on now are the most bitter and distasteful pills I have ever had to take – one of this morning’s stuck to my tongue and I can still taste it 4 hours later.

Cat bites are the worst, short of human bites. Their canines are sharp and penetrate deep, and are full of unpleasant customers. Immobilisation, elevation, and combo antibiotics are mandatory for bites to hands by cats. And still quite a few of them end up needing debridement.

It’s not that I am unsympathetic to your plight. Of course I am…it’s just you did ask. Sorry!

To be fair when I ask myself the question “What’s worse than {my current predicament}?” I have always found that adding a sentence with the words “cheesegrater” and “scrotum” and “liberally applied to” in puts things in the proper context.

Because the pee interacts badly with the rose water and pomegranate imported Italian bathwater I use by the tanker load. It also corrodes the copper bath.

And releases clouds of chlorine gas by a hitherto unexplained reaction with some of the emollients and cleansers I use in my pre-bath ritual. This mixes badly with the smoke from the 1000 baby blood candles I light my bath with.

Audley
My sympathies. And those evil little parasites also slow down your imune system so you get sick more often.
I can at least take all the drugs that go together short of knocking me out.

+++++
Ah, talking ’bout infections, the comercial on TV just told me that I MUST NOT LET THE KIDS TOUCH THE SOAP DISPENSER BECAUSE OF TEH GERMS! ELEBENTY!!!
I must buy an antiseptic soap dispenser that has a light barrier and will kill all the eeeevil bacteria.

Obviously, I…hahahaha erm…would never wish that hell on YOU. Obviously. Goes without saying.

What I meant was that this is a special hell reserved for the most odious folks and they would be transported to it and…erm…that even though you’re totally like not…ahaha…a candidate for that or anything you did ask how your current predicament could get worse and I…okay why are you holding that baseball bat like that?

Do you like chocolate? I have chocolate! And ice cream. And did I mention I love you and you look wonderful? Radiant even. I just have to go and get you something from the jewellery store. Be right back. In a few hours. Days maybe. Love you!

I am again struck by the thought that we really have to socialize debunking.

The occasion of my thinking this: I found myself talking to someone some weeks back who mentioned she used these things.

Now, I can legitimately plead I didn’t actually know a whole hell of a lot about the things at the time, so couldn’t really say anything much then, anyway. Tho’ I expect from her reaction and the quick end to the conversation that my facial expression did at least somewhat betray what I was thinking (Which was, roughly: ‘Strange… you don’t look like an idiot… Or didn’t before this conversation, anyway…’)

Anyway, now that this weirdness has just come up again (in this thread, just now), and now that I’ve read the Quackwatch page, I’m thinking: y’know… I really probably should give her that link, just in case she hasn’t heard that, apart from the fact the things don’t at all do what they claim, getting candle wax inside your ear can lead to much unpleasantness up to and including surgery. I mean, she seems like a nice sort of person. And hell, even if she seemed like a total asshole, I think I’d still find myself thinking: I should probably mention this.

But I’m encountering the usual misgivings about even broaching the damned subject. She’s not someone I know real well… employee at a coffee shop I’m a regular at (tho’ very regular, and for some years). So it’s gonna be that whole ‘how do I bring this up without sounding kinda like I’m sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted/sounding like a knowitall, and so on…’

I’m thinking I can handle it, yes, on reflection. Subject only came up ‘cos we got talking about our respective ear issues (mine almost always seem to get inflamed/painful with colds, and in boarding season especially, it’s like an ongoing roller coaster of inflamed/not inflamed)… I figure I’ll just sorta mention, y’know, about that ear candling thing you mentioned a while back, well, my ears were off the other day (true, but as mentioned, that’s intermittently true all the time with me) and I looked into that candling thing (true as a phrase in isolation, but a lie in the context, since the implication is I was actually seriously considering it for my own ears, and I was just Googling for it just now in near full knowledge I was going to be amused and/or appalled… oh, and seriously, speaking of amusing, do see Buttcandling, a parody found via Orac, as it happened to come up) … and honestly, I wonder if I can even sell that notion that I actually considered it, but anyway), but me, i’m gonna pass, and see, here’s why, and there’s this page you might want to read if you’re not into winding up in painful and unnecessary surgery…’

But y’know, again, it bugs me that I’m going to bother with that probably necessary gentle broaching.

I think, rather, what we need to do is socialize debunking. The general understanding that there are charlatans everywhere–and especially those alt-med types who claim they’re your whole-earth granola-eating friends, well, probably the reason they keep looking over their shoulders when they’re talking to you is they’re just one step ahead of the cops and Health Canada–oh, and yes, if you meet in the road someone who says he’s talking to the Buddha for you, never mind the Buddha, kill him*… I’m thinking this sort of understanding needs to be more endemic. So that no one is surprised when the guy you sorta half know from the coffee shop can just look at you and say: ‘Seriously, I hope you checked that out before you stuck it in any orifice whatsoever, and if you don’t mind, I’m gonna do it for you on my smartphone right now!’. And so he can do that without somehow becoming the bad guy.

(*/Okay: note to tone-deaf haters of new atheists who don’t recognize the reference: I am not seriously suggesting murdering** priests. It’s a play on a certain expression, o ye intermittently conveniently illiterate ones.)

(**/Hell, I probably wouldn’t even kick one in the shins… Even if he did come up to me in the road sans invitation and try to sell me a direct line to the Buddha… Probably.)

When my nephew was being bullied as a child, it helped that his teacher made it clear that the bullying was unacceptable. Kids really do follow the teacher’s lead and if s/he makes it clear that this is bad behavior, they’ll usually stop it.

While not as detailed an answer as Louis’ I have to say that being pregnant, sick, and on a subway is also pretty bad. The only consolation is being able to threaten to throw up on the jerk that won’t give up his seat to the sick, pregnant woman.

I’m gonna use that (about to be launched) bathtub of yours in the next conversation I find myself in with a theist. “there might be Louis’ copper bath in orbit, around the moon. We can’t prove it’s not”*

*clearly I’m relying on the fact that the theist doesn’t know where Louis lives, to go and check that the bath is still there, and therefore, by exclusion, NOT in orbit around any celestial body.

AJ Milne,

Several yers ago, at the good food &wine show in Melbourne, Wife found a stall that she insisted I go and check out. They had promised that they could tell us which foods child#2 was allergic to, thus causing his allergy (eczema).

According stall holder, if I supplied a sample of child#2’s hair, (along with $150 – special show price, not available after the show, when you would have chance to research it properly) they would put it in a machine (that they had back in the Gold Coast), and they would measure the magnetic resonance of his hair, and identify which foods had incompatible magnetic resonances. Knowing a little about NMR, I asked about the machine it’s size, etc. they machine was (apparently) the size of a small saucer. I asked why they didn’t bring it to the show, and you, know, calibration, waffle, sensitive, waffle, waffle some more.
I looked the person in the eye, spoke to Wife & said, in loud voice “don’t waste anymore time on these people. They are charlatans.”

Wife was upset, as she was looking for the panacea to cure child#2’s skin condition. I was livid that these people were so willing to take advantage of stressed and vulnerable parents. In my anger & disgust, I completely failed to take note of the “company” to report them.

So yes, I agree with you. Now, every chance I get to question people believing in woo, I take.

The GOP, in order to reduce the public debt created by giving huge tax cuts to the rich and to large corporations, wants to cut food stamps by about $60.00 per month. Form the article (with my empasises):

The changes would also force up to 3 million people out of the program by tightening eligibility rules, the administration estimates.

Heh… it’s going to be rough to socialize debunking when simply disagreeing is already socially off-key, and agreeing with someone is an expected social glue, conflated with trust.

not-so-tangent: There’s actually been some evidence that antibiotics help in SOME ear infections, usually the refractory ones. It doesn’t mean they’re not over-used, but that’s a hard sell when you’re in so much pain you can’t move except to shift your eyes.

Anyway, what’s worked for me with severe, repeated ear infections has been strong decongestants – the ones that are now almost impossible to get without a prescription, because of fear of drug labs. I have to carry a prescription renewed every year just in case.

Email has been sent to teacher to open the dialogue & ensure he is aware & handling. Now just a wait until morning, to see further.

As for Louis’ bath, you have a point. The hypothesis may still hold. Particularly if we can postulate that the bath has some quantum properties that allow it to be in two places at once. Perhaps the two instances of the bath are quantum entangled? Oooops! I hope I haven’t just invoked Deepak Chopra!

Bad morning, Horde. I woke up and found the kitchen door wide open. Laptops and smartphone stolen off kitchen counter (Mr Nifty’s and one of the boys school computer) – the thief came into our house while we were sleeping! AARRGGGHHH!

RowanVT: I am so sorry about Chamomile. You tried your best to save him. Be proud of that.

Mattir: I had quite enough of people scolding other people to “think of the sociopaths/abusers/addicts!!!” during l’affaire Schwyzer, thank you very fucking much. IMO that sort of pressure is absolutely a feminist issue, because it enables abusers to keep on abusing. You might draw a distinction between society in general having some compassion for abusers, and victims being exhorted to “forgive” them. That’s not how it plays out IRL.

I agree with you that Laden is arguing like an asshole (i.e., as one would expect). And I’m fine with the argument that prisons ought to be more humane. That said, I want people like that stalker-turned-murderer kept off the fucking streets, because I prioritize the safety of victims above his welfare. And, given his history, I’ll bet he would have killed that woman eventually, drunk or not.

Giliell:

If there’s one group of women I want out in open society as much as possible the it’s that group of women. I want them to see and learn. If they’re doing it voluntarily, their minds will not be changed by a ban. If they’re forced, they’re no longer able to make a room for themselves in the world where they might escape to.

rAmen. Also, as someone with frequent ENT infections, sympathies.

Alethea: Aww. Big fluffy ginger kitteh. Skritches.

Katherine Lorraine, Fischer is far from the first extreme wingnut to declare paying taxes unConstitutional. As Nerd says, they cherry-pick the Constitution the way they pick the wholly babble.

Catnip: Ugh, ugh, ugh. Sympathy and empathy.

Louis: While I frankly sympathize more with the “Louis” part of your personality, that’s not going to end up well for Catnip’s Child #2. “Zero tolerance” policies in the U.S. usually punish bullying victims for fighting back. (Yeah, I know, the bully is just a child and I should think of them, blah blah blah. Too many fantasies about having done exactly that to my own childhood tormenters.)

Rorschach:

Antibiotics are the opium of the General Practitioner in the 21st century.

Good analogy. Whenever I have an ENT and I happen to speak with my 70-something mother, I have to remind her that, no, I shouldn’t go to the doctor unless it persists for a few weeks. I’ll be not only wasting money but wasting energy dragging myself there, and maybe infecting other people in the process.

Audley, I dunno about outside the U.S., but I myself tend to get sick when the weather changes drastically. I’m relieved that the wild fluctuations of temperature and humidity in the last few weeks haven’t seemed to bother me. Just a little eye irritation from hay fever, which is early this year.

Louis:

How’s that: ;-)

FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP

Also, where do you order your baby blood candles from? I’ve been checking Gothic Auctions and Etsy and the like and can’t find any.

Ogvorbis:

Because, with a shitty economy (thank you, W)

W. certainly gets most of the blame, but Obama isn’t fucking helping, either.

Typo? What typ…oh yeah that was what I meant. Yeah. Totally. Good spot. Erm really. No. Yeah. I totally meant that.

{But good addition nonetheless ;-) }

2) Dianne, #686:

Oh you have to go and spoil it with reality. ;-)

3) Catnip, #687:

My bath is in orbit around a moon. Enceladus to be precise. What else do you think is causing those cryovolcanic eruptions in the south polar regions of the moon? I mean, I have one little widdle in the bath and POOF, E-ring around Saturn. It’s embarrassing. E stands for “excretion” you know.

And “expensive”, have you any idea how cleverly I have to embezzle LouisCorp and subsidiary holdings from our high position in the Evil Atheist Conspiracy (We want your children and pets)? I’ve invented new methods of creative accounting. Which let me tell you is not anywhere near as exciting as it sounds.

It is also, as you note, a quantum bath. Naturally. Goes without saying. Million to one chance. Etc.

4) Niftyatheist, #694:

Oh no! Nasty stuff, Nifty. I hope you are all okay and not too shellshocked by the experience. I also hope you’re not to inconvenienced by it all and any insurance pays out in spades and quickly.

Sadly, I also predict that gun nuts will appear and tell you that the best way to protect your smartphone is with a .48 magnum.

Oh hells yes. In my youth we had the very much victim blaming bias here too. No idea if it’s the same now. But yes, I agree, that’s usually, sadly, a bad way to handle things.

Louis

P.S. I make my baby blood candles from freshly squeezed babies. I keep them in a baby farm where they power my house in a green fashion. They are crawling in little treadmills and sustained with a dropper filled with amphetamines and nutrients. Remarkably efficient as it happens. Healthy, fit babies, cheap energy and I allow a few of them to grow up to provide me with livers for when I need transplants after nights out. I think of everything.